PFSJ Puerto Rican Heritage Program
Donation protected
We are the Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School in Holyoke, MA. We are a Title I school, with over 80% of our students from Puerto Rican families.
We provide a safe and loving community, helping our students to have skills for their future and an education that helps them to love learning, prepare for college, and become independent and active in their community and the world.
We provide breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, so that students can depend on having a reasonably good diet. We have our own food pantry in our school and make weekly deliveries to families who need food and lack transportation to pick it up. We are currently working with Nuestras Raices, a local farming community, and the Kellogg Foundation to model better quality and culturally appropriate school cafeteria food for students.
Our main mission is to prepare our students for college and help them realize a positive future. The majority of our students will be the first in the history of their family to attend college. Some of our students will be the first in their family to graduate from high school. I am sure you know the importance of education.
Most charter schools serving low-income urban areas have been able to improve the skills of their students and successfully enroll them in college. The studies show that the majority of those students drop out within the first two years of college. We were intent in having our students attend and also graduate from college.
We were able to put a unique program together for our school. We have a wonderful partnership with Holyoke Community College (HCC) and the majority of our seniors are doing their final high school year on the college campus. They have a full schedule of courses and will receive a year of college credit before they graduate from high school. We are paying for all tuition, fees, textbooks, food and supplies. We have an office on campus and a full-time staff member to help them navigate how to be successful college students. We witness first-hand the frustrations and anxieties that come with this new environment and experience daily the triumphs, as our students gain the necessary skills to do well in their courses and feel comfortable on campus.
We also want our students to experience themselves in the world. We have established a heritage program, which provides opportunities for our students to visit Puerto Rico and experience the culture and beauty of the place their ancestors came from. This has been life changing for our students, who have never had the opportunity to travel and have never been to Puerto Rico. They were able to learn the history, take part in educational and cultural studies, and even meet some of their family members. Last year, one of our students met her grandmother for the first time. (You can see their picture on this site.) Most of us were in tears during that meeting, it was so profound.
Our students returned from the heritage trips with a new sense of pride and a great determination. One student, who helped to do some translations during our trip, realized, for the first time, that being bilingual was an advantage. She came back with a strong desire to use those skills and is doing her senior internship at Mount Holyoke College, co-teaching a Spanish class to college students. Another of our heritage students was so impressed by the building styles of Old San Juan, he decided he wanted to pursue a degree in architecture, and is doing his internship with an architectural firm in Amherst, and taking a drafting course at HCC.
All of our programs have great rewards for our students and a high cost for our school. It is expensive to have small classrooms, great equipment and technology, and all the extras we offer. Giving this community quality education and new paths for the future is a challenge when our state determines per-pupil rates based on real estate taxes. Holyoke, being a low-income community, gets less than half the per-pupil rate of wealthier towns and cities.
Would you consider giving a donation this year? It would be used to help fund our many valuable programs.
All donations are tax-deductible.
We provide a safe and loving community, helping our students to have skills for their future and an education that helps them to love learning, prepare for college, and become independent and active in their community and the world.
We provide breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, so that students can depend on having a reasonably good diet. We have our own food pantry in our school and make weekly deliveries to families who need food and lack transportation to pick it up. We are currently working with Nuestras Raices, a local farming community, and the Kellogg Foundation to model better quality and culturally appropriate school cafeteria food for students.
Our main mission is to prepare our students for college and help them realize a positive future. The majority of our students will be the first in the history of their family to attend college. Some of our students will be the first in their family to graduate from high school. I am sure you know the importance of education.
Most charter schools serving low-income urban areas have been able to improve the skills of their students and successfully enroll them in college. The studies show that the majority of those students drop out within the first two years of college. We were intent in having our students attend and also graduate from college.
We were able to put a unique program together for our school. We have a wonderful partnership with Holyoke Community College (HCC) and the majority of our seniors are doing their final high school year on the college campus. They have a full schedule of courses and will receive a year of college credit before they graduate from high school. We are paying for all tuition, fees, textbooks, food and supplies. We have an office on campus and a full-time staff member to help them navigate how to be successful college students. We witness first-hand the frustrations and anxieties that come with this new environment and experience daily the triumphs, as our students gain the necessary skills to do well in their courses and feel comfortable on campus.
We also want our students to experience themselves in the world. We have established a heritage program, which provides opportunities for our students to visit Puerto Rico and experience the culture and beauty of the place their ancestors came from. This has been life changing for our students, who have never had the opportunity to travel and have never been to Puerto Rico. They were able to learn the history, take part in educational and cultural studies, and even meet some of their family members. Last year, one of our students met her grandmother for the first time. (You can see their picture on this site.) Most of us were in tears during that meeting, it was so profound.
Our students returned from the heritage trips with a new sense of pride and a great determination. One student, who helped to do some translations during our trip, realized, for the first time, that being bilingual was an advantage. She came back with a strong desire to use those skills and is doing her senior internship at Mount Holyoke College, co-teaching a Spanish class to college students. Another of our heritage students was so impressed by the building styles of Old San Juan, he decided he wanted to pursue a degree in architecture, and is doing his internship with an architectural firm in Amherst, and taking a drafting course at HCC.
All of our programs have great rewards for our students and a high cost for our school. It is expensive to have small classrooms, great equipment and technology, and all the extras we offer. Giving this community quality education and new paths for the future is a challenge when our state determines per-pupil rates based on real estate taxes. Holyoke, being a low-income community, gets less than half the per-pupil rate of wealthier towns and cities.
Would you consider giving a donation this year? It would be used to help fund our many valuable programs.
All donations are tax-deductible.
Organizer
ljuba marsh
Organizer
Holyoke, MA